Hard Labour at Tender Age According to the Global March Against Child Labour one in every six children in the world, between five and seventeen, is now exploited as a worker.') they do many different kinds of work, from mining to garment manufacture. India is home to an estimated 60 million child labourers. There are nearly 250 million child workers and most of them are in Asia. Ironically, these child workers are often forced into labour at a time when there are 886 million adults who are either unemployed or under-employed.   The gem polishing industry, is one such place which employs children between six to eleven years. The children are generally put to work for cutting, polishing, and shaping the stones. According to some NGOs, there are about seventy two to eighty thousand workers engaged in this industry in Rajasthan alone where child workers form the largest group, respite long hours of work, from sunrise to sunset these children are often not paid for the first two years and Rs 30 per month thereafter, going upto Rs 150. Ironically, the country earns about Rs. 1400 crores every year through exporting their products.   Their place of work is typically a four feet long piece of wood for three children to sit on. Because of powdered dust in the atmosphere at the workplace, breathing problem start within a year or two. The child labourers come from families steeped in poverty, hunger, illiteracy, and helplessness; suffer from breathing troubles, throat and nose infections, pneumonia, and tuberculosis, and other health problems. This is the result of unhygienic and crowded workplaces, constant exposure to humidity, living in cramped sheds, and malnutrition due to insufficient wages. The workers have to use chemicals like aluminum oxide, cerium oxide, stannic oxide, zirconium oxide etc. The use of these chemicals affects the health of the workers adversely as no steps are taken by the employers to educate the workers about the chemicals used, nor are they provided with any protective gear. The children generally suffer from pain in the joints, dizziness, and heaviness in the head, sight disorders, back pain, shoulder pain, and finger deformities.   One can legitimately ask how we can contribute to save these children a great deal of misery.